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Friday, March 29, 2024

World Down Syndrome Day

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Horrible PUP Graaf

FeaturesHorrible PUP Graaf
Numbers are not supposed to lie. A picture is worth a thousand words. And a graph told the whole story until the Belize Times started using them to promote propaganda. The Ministry of Education should stomp them down for what they did to honest math on page 4 of issue # 4589. Braa, what happens to the little kids if they see those things? Utter confusion. Not even Dr. Petters will be able to rescue the little ones from such exaggeration of the truth.
 
Diesel went up by 10 or 12% since the Red Squeezers took office in February, so say the numbers in graph number 1. But if you look at the bars in the graph, it looks like it went up 500%. Regular gasoline went up about 5%, but the message in the graph tells that it went up 400%. And premium gasoline, which went up about 25 cents since February (off the top that’s about 3%), more than doubled in price when you look at the bars. 
 
Ai, there was a time (when Andy Steinhauer was there), that we could rely on the Blue Squanderers to be true to their inspirational masthead. Not any more. Since Brother Steinhauer traded Queen Street for sun, sea, and sand at Caye Caulker, it seems they don’t give a damn anymore about the truth path to freedom. Shame.
 
While we are in the fuel business, some time ago I heard Mr. Hubert Elrington talking about something called windfall tax. Well, the breeze is blowing hurricane hard in that direction. The price per barrel of crude oil has doubled since we started harvesting in Spanish Lookout. If the BNE had projected a return of $US15 per barrel when they started out, today, two years later, they are taking $US75 per barrel. And all they have to show us for that is a toilet they constructed at a local school.
 
I understand that in Canada, citizens get a little something in the mail from oil revenues. In Belize, we get absolutely nada in the mail…except utility bills. Hey, I have this little piece titled Invasion of the Mangrove Goons and I thought about soliciting a small assistance from local businesses. How can I go to BNE (the company reaping our most valuable asset) when something is so obviously wrong there? And Telemedia? Incredibly, this monopoly company (rightfully national property) does not advertise in Belize’s most nationalistic newspaper.
 
3 responses to a brother
 
Allow me to comment on three points Brother Luna made in the postscript to his piece in last week Friday’s Amandala. He wrote:
 
do you think glorifying your masters, the Baymen, is worth our division?
 
Put aside the first part of the statement (he likes it so much he repeated it) and let’s talk about this divisive. We know all about this divisive. I believe it is true that the Kriols (many) used the Battle to remind everybody else that dehn da kohn ya…same as many Belizeans of today (of every ethnicity) remind people who just came (Taiwanese, Salvadorans)…that they just came…same as the USA is doing with the Mexicans. That behavior is kind of typical, people being what they are.
 
So, we wipe out history. The Conquistadores wiped out much of the history of our Mayan ancestors. Hitler tried to wipe out Jewish history, too.
 
I have a difficulty understanding all this sweat for the Spanish Crown. The Spanish Crown invaded Belize in 1798 and was repelled. Was it the British Crown that drove them back? No, Belize did not become a Crown Colony until 1862, sixty-four years later.
 
Brother Luna continued: “Your forebears, brother, not ours…”…and…”How could the Negroes be Baymen when they were considered as sub-human?”
 
The white ancestors of most Kriols (not all Kriols have European ancestry) considered our slave ancestors as sub-human…BUT WE DON’T! We insist that all men who live by a bay are men who live by a bay…Baymen. Black, white, brown, red, yellow…Baymen all!
 
The Battle of Saint George’s Caye is a story like none other. Our slave ancestors could have turned their muskets and spears on our white riff raff ancestors from the British Isles, and run away to the dubious freedom offered by the Spanish Crown. Some historians have suggested that our slave ancestors were stupid (they say much worse than that, but leave it so for now) not to do so. We are saying that they were not. If the Spanish Crown had offered a ship back to Africa, well, there’d be no problem with that map at the Guatemalan border, nor the falling of the Chiquibul forest.
 
Sorry, there are those of us who love the Belizean flavor. We owe our slave ancestors more for that than anyone else!
 
Oh, we owe our many other ethnic groups for our wonderful flavor, too. For the Mayas, Belize has always been home. All the other ethnic groups came here seeking a better life*. Except for the slave ancestors who were kidnapped and brought here in the stinking ships. My, the ones who were scourged became the soul of Belize. Hip, hip, hurrah!
 
*Brother Neil Garbutt noted in his very interesting and informative piece,Diminish one, diminish all, in Amandala # 2227, that…oppressors and slaves alike, despite all odds, did not abandon this land, but instead, managed to establish basic laws and institutions, and built the necessary infrastructure, which made Belize a very attractive and peaceful refuge for all the other groups that followed, except, of course, the original inhabitants, our Maya.

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